Over the last month, I have had a lot of exposure to teenagers who are way cooler than I was at their age - and cooler than I am now - thanks to the Knox.biz 20 Under 20 program.

Hearing them talk so passionately about the businesses they've started, the ones they plan to start and the goals they're striving to meet forced me to recall the time my sister and I started our own small business. And failed.

I was 11 or so, and my sister, Kaycee, was 8.

Cortney Roark(Photo: Calvin Mattheis)

Our business was called C&K Eggs, and our business model was simple. People eat eggs. We'll raise chickens and provide people with the best darn eggs they've ever had.

So we signed up through 4-H, and before we knew it we had 13 chirping yellow fuzz balls living in a box under a heat lamp. The 13th "bonus chick" was more brown than yellow, so we called her Speckles.

Our dad taught us the basics and, for the most part, everything was our responsibility. We cleaned out their box, fed them, cuddled them (a lot) and prepped their grown-up chicken coop. We decided the pink playhouse our dad built us a few years ago was better suited for proper chicken raising than playing house.

Cortney and Kaycee Roark's playhouse-turned-chicken coop in the early 2000s.(Photo: Submitted)

Before we knew it, they were happy as clams living in their little pink coop with a large back yard to relax in. As the business grew, so did our responsibility.

Compared to 13 chicks, 13 chickens produce a lot more ... umm ... material to remove from their much larger habitat. And they eat a lot. It was a lot of work for chickens that have yet to lay a single egg.

We'd Sharpied "C&K Eggs" onto hundreds of egg cartons and taken pre-orders just to wait impatiently on the product.

And finally, we struck gold.

An egg laid by chickens owned by Cortney and Kaycee Roark in 2005.(Photo: Submitted)

Within a couple days all thirteen chickens were fully operational. And look out! Speckles laid green eggs.

That's no joke. Our bonus chicken laid eggs that were actually green. So, with every dozen C&K Eggs purchased, customers received one green egg. It was a genius marketing campaign.

We filled orders like crazy. We collected dozens of eggs a week and worked off pre-orders alone. Business was booming.